“Our industry has been criticised for its short-term focus, undisciplined growth and poor returns on invested capital,” Mark Bristow, Chief Executive of Randgold said in a statement. “The merged company will be very different,”

He added: “Its goal will be to deliver sector leading returns, and in order to achieve this, we will need to take a very critical view of our asset base and how we run our business, and be prepared to make tough decisions.”

Why the sudden flurry of deals?

There are numerous reasons for the recent M&A boom, which also saw Coca-Cola buy Costa Coffee in late August. First up, big mergers tend to come towards the end of economic cycles. It’s not entirely clear whether or not we’re approaching the end of a cycle, or if the current economic and stock market boom will continue, but companies clearly think economic conditions are right for deals.

September, the final month of the third quarter, also tends to provide a solid time of year to go for a big deal.

“September can always be a big month for deals as projects that were put on hold, or were having finishing touches put on them over the Summer break get the sign-off from key decision makers coming back from their holidays,” Ben Kelly, a merger arbitrage analyst at Louis Capital told Business Insider on Tuesday.

“Now we have Brexit approaching an end-game and acquirers are happy to take advantage of weak GBP to pick up assets,” Kelly added with regards to deals for Sky and Randgold. Those deals saw non-UK firms buy British companies, using the weakness of the pound against the dollar to secure relatively less expensive buys.